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Families and Literacy

Family Literacy is a high priority at Heartland Head Start. Parents and adult caregivers of children have a very important role in preparing children to become readers. Heartland Head Start recognizes that these adults are a child’s first and best teacher, and we encourage all parents and adult caregivers to make reading part of their daily family routines. We strive to help families in our program have the tools and knowledge needed to help children develop pre-reading and reading skills.

We provide many initiatives to support parents and other adult caregivers in their efforts to raise readers, including, but not limited to:

  • Building home libraries through monthly book distributions which are funded by grants from a variety of community organizations.
  • Providing tips for reading with children and increasing family literacy in monthly family literacy packets.
  • Providing literacy-based family programming in conjunction with the public libraries in Bloomington, Normal and Pontiac and as part of the ABC Team in McLean County.
  • Offering an opportunity to participate in Lending Library to further increase each family’s access to children’s books.
  • Encouraging daily family reading by providing monthly reading calendars.
  • Offering the opportunity to earn additional books, school supplies and craft supplies for families who actively participate in literacy programming.

    • Below are listed some links where more family literacy activities and information can be found:

  • Illinois Early Learning Project
  • Reading Rockets for Parents
  • Early Literacy Learning

    • Reading aloud to children has been called the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for success in reading.

    Quick Resources